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I have 12 supers still left that were pulled late last year. I usually use them for building splits, but this year I haven't split or caught as many swarms as I thought. These supers have anywhere from 30 to 90% capped honey. Some uncapped. I had them sitting in a garage and I'm sure they absorbed moisture. Do not want to process.

My question is that I would like to feed this honey back to the hives and have them "refresh" the honey. I can probably just sit them in the yard but this will create a firestorm no doubt.

Is there an internal trick to placing them on a hive and getting them to move this into other boxes? I would like to empty these boxes as I would like to use this particular size super for something else.

I'm thinking extra empty hive boxes making a large seperation from the main hive and using excluders in some manner? Any comments on this would be appreciated. Thanks.

I want to incorporate the remaining frames into new supers with foundation. These are the same supers previously mentioned. I want to boost some of my 1-1/2 hives and might as well use this honey for that.

If I take five frames of capped honey/uncapped honey/some brood cells(empty), and put them in a box with five frames of foundation, should I keep all five of one kind to one side or go with a "every other one" pattern? For as many times I did both I never really thought if it was correct one way or the other.

I always put new foundation staggered between the drawn foundation. They seem to draw it quicker and straighter because the already drawn foundation establishes the lines of comb for the undrawn foundation.

Yes I find this true Micheal. Except at times in honey storage positions where bees draw out the combs so wide it hits the foundations and at times ruins them. So I think timing and placement is a factor here( build up, major flow, end or flow, dearth).

I want to boost some of my 1-1/2 hives and might as well use this honey for that.

reply:

When you say boost do you mean to provide space for brooding, space for storing honey, use the combs as feed, all of the above??? Is it your intention for the bees to remove the honey from the frames? Or would you want them to fill them up and it becomes part of the winter stores set up? I'd go every other one if trying to move the honey out. If it is to become part of the colonies natural set up without moving the honey out then put the fullest honey combs to the outside with empty, then foundation in the center gut of the box alternating.

At this point, just to incorporate into the hives for them to do with as they see fit and also let them have more brood space. I normally run 1-1/2 hives and felt this was to hard on the bees last year with the winter we had.

I figure they have time to build foundation and move the honey where they want but I do not want alot of burr/cross comb. Keeping straight comb is my goal.